Vietnam Port of Hoi An Renews
Role as Host of World Bazaar

By

Samantha Marshall Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated Jan. 21, 1999 12:01 a.m. ET

HOI AN, Vietnam -- Six months into the monsoon season, in the spring, favorable sailing weather would blow merchant ships to this stretch of the Indochina coastline for an international market bazaar. Onshore, the ships' masters would haggle over the price of cinnamon, pepper and saffron, creating a babble of languages that is echoed today, three centuries later, by foreign tourists bargaining for souvenirs.

Japanese and Chinese ships first met off the coast to circumvent a trade embargo between the two countries. But in...